Transport group Stagecoach has ditched its support for a £1.9 billion merger with National Express and agreed to a higher rival £595 million takeover
(Picture: PA Archive)National Express’ takeover of rival Stagecoach has been gazumped by a Germanasset management.
A £595 million approach tabled today by DWS Infrastructure, part of German asset management firm the DWS Group, is driving the proposed £1.9 billion merger off the road.
The new bid at 105p a share has been unanimously approved by the Stagecoach board, which withdrew support for the National Express bid that valued Stagecoach at £445 million.
Martin Griffiths, chief executive of Stagecoach, said: “This was an unsolicited approach [in November].
“DWS is a very serious player and a worldwide global asset manager and a big pan-European infrastructure player. They were interested in the UK and passionate about this space and see long-term opportunity in infrastructure related assets.”
Stagecoach runs coach and bus services across Scotland as well as city buses in London, Manchester, Liverpool, Newcastle, Sheffield, Hull, Oxford and Cambridge. It has a fleet of 8,400 buses and coaches serving 1 billion passengers a year.
It also runs Megabus coach service across the UK, Sheffield’s tram network, and a direct express coach service between London and Oxford, the Oxford Tube.
Stagecoach rival National Express, the UK wide coach travel operator, had previously proposed the merger of the two companies in an all-share combination that would have created a fleet of 36,000 buses and coaches.
Shareholders would have received 0.36 new National Express shares for each share they owned, handing them 25% of the combined group.
The deal hit the brakes earlier this year when the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority intervened and announced it would investigate the merger to examine the deal’s impact on industry competition in the transport sector.
Griffith added: “We always knew that National Express was going to be a long process. Clearly though this deal has a far greater certainty. I think we can confidently say that there will not be any competition or regulatory issues as DWS does not have any public transport issues in the UK, or overlap.”
National Express, the largest coach operator in the UK with a total fleet of 28,000 vehicles, noted the DWS offer and said it would make a full statement in due course.
The DWS deal requires approval from 75% of Stagecoach shareholders and is expected to be confirmed in the first half of the year.
